Handling of Errors in Data Transferred from a Source Application to a Target Application of an Enterprise Resource Planning (erp) System

1. A method of handling errors in data transferred from a source system to a target system, said method comprising: maintaining in staging tables as staging data, the data being transferred from said source system to an application of said target system, wherein said staging tables are maintained as database tables accessible via a database management system (DBMS) such that said staging data is stored in said database tables; receiving rules from a user, each rule identifying a respective portion of interest in said staging data, an error condition to be checked in the respective portion and an action to be performed upon detection of an error in the respective portion based on said error condition, wherein said respective portion of interest is specified in the form of a table identifier and a column identifier, said table identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding table of said database tables, said column identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding column in the corresponding table identified by said table identifier, wherein said error condition represents the condition to be checked against each row in said corresponding column identified by said column identifier, wherein said action comprises an expression specifying a default value representing the value an entry at the intersection of said column and the row having the error, is to be set to; examining said staging data stored in said staging tables according to a first rule of said rules to identify a first error associated with a first data item in a first portion of said staging data; and performing, upon identifying said first error, an action associated with said combination of said first portion and said first error, as specified by said first rule in said rules, wherein said action updates said first data item to a new value, said new value corresponding to the default value specified by said first rule of said rules, wherein said examining and said performing of said action are performed on said staging data stored in said database tables.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising propagating said respective portion of interest to a transaction table if no error is detected by said examining.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each received rule also specifies an indication of whether an error value is to be corrected automatically or manually, said rule also specifying said expression in case said indication indicates that said error value is to be corrected automatically.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said first rule further specifies a link which can be actuated to view and modify said error value, said method further comprising notifying said link to said user if said indication specified by said first rule indicates that said error value is to be corrected manually.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein said link is notified in the form of an email communication.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein said source system and said target system execute a respective constituent application of a plurality of constituent applications of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, wherein data generated by the constituent application executing in said source system is transferred to the constituent application executing in said target system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said rules comprise a first set of rules and a second set of rules, each of said first set of rules having a first value for a priority and each of said second set of rules having a second value for said priority, wherein said first value specifies a higher priority relative to said second value, said method further comprising processing all of said first set of rules prior to processing any of said second set of rules in view of said first value specifying said higher priority, wherein said processing comprises said examining and said performing for each rule of said first set of rules and said second set of rules.

8. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for causing a digital processing system to handle errors in data transferred from a source system to a target system, wherein execution of said one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors contained in said digital processing system causes said digital processing system to perform a set of actions comprising: maintaining in staging tables as staging data, the data being transferred from said source system to an application of said target system, wherein said staging tables are maintained as database tables accessible via a database management system (DBMS) such that said staging data is stored in said database tables; receiving rules from a user, each rule identifying a respective portion of interest in said staging data, an error condition to be checked in the respective portion and an action to be performed upon detection of an error in the respective portion based on said error condition, wherein said respective portion of interest is specified in the form of a table identifier and a column identifier, said table identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding table of said database tables, said column identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding column in the corresponding table identified by said table identifier, wherein said error condition represents the condition to be checked against each row in said corresponding column identified by said column identifier, wherein said action comprises an expression specifying a default value representing the value an entry at the intersection of said column and the row having the error, is to be set to; examining said staging data stored in said staging tables according to a first rule of said rules to identify a first error associated with a first data item in a first portion of said staging data; and performing, upon identifying said first error, an action associated with said combination of said first portion and said first error, as specified by said first rule in said rules, wherein said action updates said first data item to a new value, said new value corresponding to the default value specified by said first rule of said rules, wherein said examining and said performing of said action are performed on said staging data stored in said database tables.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , said set of actions further comprising propagating said respective portion of interest to a transaction table if no error is detected by said examining.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , wherein each received rule also specifies an indication of whether an error value is to be corrected automatically or manually, said rule also specifying said expression in case said indication indicates that said error value is to be corrected automatically.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 10 , wherein said first rule further specifies a link which can be actuated to view and modify said error value, said set of actions further comprising notifying said link to said user if said indication specified by said first rule indicates that said error value is to be corrected manually.

12. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 11 , wherein said link is notified in the form of an email communication.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 10 , wherein said source system and said target system execute a respective constituent application of a plurality of constituent applications of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, wherein data generated by the constituent application executing in said source system is transferred to the constituent application executing in said target system.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , wherein said rules comprise a first set of rules and a second set of rules, each of said first set of rules having a first value for a priority and each of said second set of rules having a second value for said priority, wherein said first value specifies a higher priority relative to said second value, said set of actions further comprising processing all of said first set of rules prior to processing any of said second set of rules in view of said first value specifying said higher priority, wherein said processing comprises said examining and said performing for each rule of said first set of rules and said second set of rules.

15. A digital processing system for handling errors in data transferred from a source system to transaction tables, wherein a target application is designed to process said data in said transaction tables, said digital processing system comprising: a memory to store instructions; a processor to retrieve and execute said instructions, wherein execution of said instructions causes performance of a set of actions comprising: maintaining in staging tables as staging data, the data being transferred from said source system to said transaction tables, wherein said staging tables are maintained as database tables accessible via a database management system (DBMS) such that said staging data is stored in said database tables; receiving rules from a user, each rule identifying a respective portion of interest in said staging data, an error condition to be checked in the respective portion and an action to be performed upon detection of an error in the respective portion based on said error condition, wherein said respective portion of interest is specified in the form of a table identifier and a column identifier, said table identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding table of said database tables, said column identifier uniquely identifying a corresponding column in the corresponding table identified by said table identifier, wherein said error condition represents the condition to be checked against each row in said corresponding column identified by said column identifier, wherein said action comprises an expression specifying a default value representing the value an entry at the intersection of said column and the row having the error, is to be set to; examining said staging data stored in said staging tables according to a first rule of said rules to identify a first error associated with a first data item in a first portion of said staging data; and performing, upon identifying said first error, an action associated with said combination of said first portion and said first error, as specified by said first rule in said rules, wherein said action updates said first data item to a new value, said new value corresponding to the default value specified by said first rule of said rules, wherein said examining and said performing of said action are performed on said staging data stored in said database tables.

16. The digital processing system of claim 15 , wherein said set of actions further comprises propagating said respective portion of interest to said transaction tables if no error is detected by said examining.

17. The digital processing system of claim 15 , wherein each received rule also specifies an indication of whether an error value is to be corrected automatically or manually, said rule also specifying said expression in case said indication indicates that said error value is to be corrected automatically.

18. The digital processing system of claim 17 , wherein said first rule further specifies a link which can be actuated to view and modify said error value, said set of actions further comprising notifying said link to said user in the form of an email communication if said indication specified by said first rule indicates that said error value is to be corrected manually.

19. The digital processing system of claim 17 , wherein said source system and said target system execute a respective constituent application of a plurality of constituent applications of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, wherein data generated by the constituent application executing in said source system is transferred to the constituent application executing in said target system.

20. The digital processing system of claim 15 , wherein said rules comprise a first set of rules and a second set of rules, each of said first set of rules having a first value for a priority and each of said second set of rules having a second value for said priority, wherein said first value specifies a higher priority relative to said second value, said set of actions further comprising processing all of said first set of rules prior to processing any of said second set of rules in view of said first value specifying said higher priority, wherein said processing comprises said examining and said performing for each rule of said first set of rules and said second set of rules.